It takes practice

In my first call as a pastor, I inherited a confirmation program in which 25 teenagers would sit in a church basement with no windows for three hours weekly and silently fill out workbooks while a few church elders supervised them. After two years of this disciplined, disembodied study these future leaders of the church were confirmed. Halleluiah! But despite knowing how many Midianites Gideon smote at Moreh, most of these kids never found their way back to church. Brett Webb-Mitchell, a professor of Christian nurture at Duke Divinity School, helps us understand why.